


Nowhere to Go But Up

by PostcardsfromTheoryland



Series: December Fic Prompts [6]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Basically projecting my ideal Christmas gathering, Christmas Fluff, Gen, Keith and Shiro are space nerds, Keith is introduced to the concept of friends, Socially Awkward Keith (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:40:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27954020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PostcardsfromTheoryland/pseuds/PostcardsfromTheoryland
Summary: Who knew that surprise Christmas dinners with strangers could actually be nice?
Relationships: Hunk & Keith (Voltron), Keith & Shiro (Voltron)
Series: December Fic Prompts [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2037385
Comments: 4
Kudos: 27





	Nowhere to Go But Up

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt for today happened to be "Someone doesn't have anyone to spend the holiday with" which just flowed so well after yesterday's prompt, so this is the direct continuation to Coffeeshops.

Keith really wants to go back in time about half an hour and just scream at his past self. What the _fuck_ had he been thinking? Some random stranger who owns a coffeeshop invites him to Christmas and he just…accepts? What the hell had happened to his sense of self-preservation?? And now here Keith is, following the stranger’s car to an even more stranger’s house to have Christmas dinner with people he’s never seen before and knows nothing about it. The sum of Keith’s knowledge about this ‘Shiro’ person whose house he is currently driving to is that 1) his name is Shiro 2) he hosts Christmas and 3) he likes space.

Again. What the fuck is wrong with him?

 _You couldn’t stand the thought of another Christmas alone,_ the traitorous part of his mind responds. _You took the first inkling of kindness someone threw at you and ran with it._

More like his therapist would have killed him if she knew he’d gotten invited to interact with other human beings and turned the offer down. It’s not as if he’s a complete hermit, he sees people sometimes. There are people at work, even if he says maybe a total of five words to them outside of “hand me the air ratchet.” Kolivan doesn’t seem to mind; Keith does good work, and half the time Rolo just spends his shift chatting up Nyma anyways, so as far as Keith is concerned it’s a good thing he doesn’t talk much, so he can actually do his fucking work. And he sees his neighbors sometimes. He doesn’t ever really talk to them…or even know their names…But they wave hello every once in a while. That has to count for something, right?

Ok, so Keith really isn’t good with social interactions of any kind. And yeah, he doesn’t really have friends. But that doesn’t mean he should just jump headfirst into Christmas dinner with complete strangers. That’s like, Level 100 Socializing Speed-Run.

He could still leave. He’s following Hunk on his bike, and there’s nothing stopping him from turning off the road and never going back to that coffeeshop.

Nothing, except he gets the feeling that Hunk would really feel sad about it, and for some reason that seems to be enough to keep Keith from booking it in the opposite direction.

Also Keith sort of wants to go back to the coffeeshop again. And if Hunk’s cooking is anything like his baking, it’s bound to be good. He’ll get free dinner out of it, if nothing else.

Which is how Keith finds himself pulling into the driveway of a nondescript duplex in the suburbs. Hunk is already starting to unload the car and automatically puts a casserole dish into Keith’s hands and nudges him toward the door.

Too late to back out now.

Luckily someone opens the door to the house before he has to figure out how to knock with his hands full of what smells like mashed potatoes. Keith has a whole little speech that he’s been practicing on the way here: _Hi, I’m Keith, I’m sorry to show up uninvited but I spent the morning at Hunk’s coffeeshop and he convinced me to come_. But before he can get a word out, the man at the door is already greeting him.

“You must be Keith!” he says, and it honestly sounds as if he’s _happy_ to have dinner crashed by some random stranger. “Hunk told us you’d be coming. Ooh, is that the shepherd’s pie?” And then Keith is being ushered into the house and the person, probably Shiro, is showing him where on the counter to put the dish in his hands, and there’s _really_ no longer a graceful way to back out of this.

Ok. He can do this. It’s just dinner. On Christmas. With strangers.

But it’s fine.

“That’s Shay, Hunk’s girlfriend,” Shiro points out the woman in the kitchen, who smiles from where she’s mixing punch next to the sink. “And Matt and Pidge,” he gestures toward the nearly identical pair of siblings in the living room, who seem to be in a heated argument over something to do with the TV, though Keith isn’t really sure what. “And of course you already know Hunk,” he finishes as Hunk brings in the remaining four dishes on his own. ‘Know’ is a bit of an overstatement, all things considered, but it’s still the tiniest bit of a relief to have Hunk back in the room as the only other person he’s had a conversation with at this point.

“Ok,” the shorter sibling (who might be Pidge? Keith is really unclear about that) pokes her head into the kitchen, “now that we’re all here, you need to vote. This year’s topic is Horror Film Sequel Set in Space: _Jason X_ or _Leprechaun 4_?”

“Oh, definitely _Jason X_ ,” Shiro says.

“Seconded!” Shay calls out from where she’s arranging a tray of cookies.

“I’ll probably close my eyes through most of either of them,” Hunk shrugs. “Keith?”

“Wait, we’re voting on a horrible movie to watch?” he checks.

“No, we’re voting on which prestigious film to discuss philosophically over dinner,” Pidge jokes. At least Keith thinks it’s a joke. “No, but seriously didn’t Hunk tell you? We watch a really shitty movie every year and heckle the living daylights out of it. _Jason X_ already won, by the way, so the vote is only a formality at this point.”

It’s not exactly the type of Christmas dinner Keith had been expecting, though when he got invited to dinner by the owner of a coffeeshop he’d met less than an hour ago, all expectations went out the window. But it’s significantly less awkward to sit on couches with TV trays set up instead of around a formal dining room table, and to skip over the small-talk right into ‘can you actually cryogenically freeze an entire room, though?’ Keith finds himself relaxing by increments; it’s easy to laugh at the movie, and easier still to laugh at Shay goading Pidge, Matt, and Hunk into more and more ridiculous conversation topics. And _damn_ , the food is good, easily the best meal Keith has had in years.

Keith clams up again for a moment, when the movie ends and Shiro turns to him with an expectant “So…”, but instead of the usual questions about what he does for a living or where his family is or what music he likes, Shiro just says “Space, huh? Did you hear about the Garrison’s planned mission to Jupiter’s moons?” And yes _of course_ Keith heard about the Calypso mission, but this is the first time he’s met someone else who actually seems to care about it.

The evening is sort of a blur after that. He and Shiro talk each other’s ears off about the plans and the public schematics of the ship and the little minutiae of the training regimen, pausing only to play a couple rounds of Hanabi with the others before they start back up again. It isn’t until Keith yawns halfway through an impassioned rant about the previous mission, the Hyades, that he realizes it’s past midnight and he’s just spent the entire day with other people and actually…had a good time?

“Oh, shit,” Shiro says, looking at the clock. “I didn’t think it was that late.”

“I didn’t either,” Keith says, still marveling at that.

“Here,” Shiro says, pulling out his phone, and before Keith realizes what’s going on he’s been added to their group chat. “We get together about once a week. To be honest we basically do the exact same stuff we did tonight: Hunk makes dinner, we watch a terrible movie and play some boardgames that may or may not end in bloodshed and tears. You should come, if you’re not busy.”

Shiro clearly still hasn’t figured out that Keith’s social calendar involves “work” and “weekly trip to the grocery store.” It’s nearly impossible for him to be busy. But that train of thought is cut off when Hunk shoves a stack of Tupperware full of leftovers into Keith’s hands, and his phone buzzes with the notification that Pidge has already put a poll for the next awful movie to watch into the group chat and Shay and Matt have already voted for _Space Mutiny_.

“Yeah,” Keith says, still smiling down at his phone. “That sounds like fun.”


End file.
